John B. Hurford '60 Center for the Arts and HumanitiesHurford Center Exhibitions Program

Making and Collecting: Stephanie Franks and Lee Tribe

Semi-abstract paintings and sculptures by Stephanie L. Franks and Lee Tribe, and works from their collections, will be on display in Haverford College's Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery from January 26 through February 25.

The exhibit entitled, "Making and Collecting," will reflect how artists' collections can influence their own work.

The exhibit is free and open to the public. There will be an opening reception on Friday, January 26 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m, and the artists will give a talk in the gallery on Tuesday, February 13 at 4:15 p.m. about aspects of their collections that can be seen in their own paintings and sculptures.

Much of Franks' work originates from her direct observations, yet her paintings hover between abstraction and representation. Her subjects range from natural landscapes to exotic artifacts from her personal collection, and her work is known for eliciting a sense of animation from these inanimate objects through her organization of color and spatial tension.

A native of Long Beach, Calif., Franks moved to New York to study under George McNeil and Nicholas Carone at the New York Studio School. There she won a Yale Norfolk Scholarship and went on to earn a master's degree in fine arts from Queens College with guidance from such influential figures as Arthur Cohen and Louis Frinkelstein.

In 1987, she was an artist-in-residence at the Djerassi Foundation in California and, a year later, received a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for drawing. She has taught at numerous colleges and art schools over the past 15 years, including the Parsons School of Design in New York, University of Maryland and the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where she is currently an adjunct assistant professor.

Her husband, Lee Tribe, grew up in post-war England on the flood plains of the Thames River. He worked with his father and brother on the local docks and had the opportunity to see materials and objects from around the world.

Following an apprenticeship as a boilermaker on the docks, Tribe decided to attend art school in order to express his feelings about the exotic goods from new Guinea, Africa, India, and Bali that he witnessed. He studied at Thurrock Technical College, St. Martin's School of Art and the Birmingham School of Art in England and received Barnett Newman Scholarship to travel to the United States and study at the New York Studio School.

Influenced by his experiences and skills from his days on the docks, Tribe creates his sculptures from bits and pieces of industrial metals, such as lengths of cable, buts and bolts, chains and steel plates. The sculptor is known for achieving animation and a sense of fluidity from such rigid and recalcitrant materials as welded-steel and coiled-steel.

His work has received numerous honors, including a Corange Ltd. Fellowship at the Djerassi Artists Program in California, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Fellowship a Guggenheim Fellowship and an Ingram Merrill Award. In addition, Tribe's sculptures have appeared in two movies: Something In Common, featuring Mary Tyler Moore, and Boomerang, starring Eddie Murphy.

Tribe currently teaches at the New York Studio School as well as the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He also has taught at Columbia University and Benington College in Vermont.

Franks and Tribe have shown their works and collections at numerous galleries throughout the United States.